Spring Time Fun

The many signs of Spring are here in Michigan. James celebrated his birthday last week with our friends here in Michigan. This is a picture of Roots and Ethan playing a birthday game together. We like this picture because Ethan's eyes are actually open.

If any of you have been following the March Madness then you know that the MSU Spartans are doing pretty well these days. Both Megan and James (and Roots and Ethan by default) have MSU going all the way. We wanted to get this posted before they (heaven forbid) lose in their game tomorrow night.

These two videos show the kind of fun stuff you can do when there is no snow on the ground. Our friends (the Christensens) have two Power Wheels cars that Roots just loves to play with, now that she knows about the gas pedal. Paiton and Roots have a grand time rolling around the Marsh's driveway and we just need to keep them from going into the street.

Back at Home

I know some of you may have been concerned we never made it home from the hospital.
It has been a while since our last post, but that was due to my computer hard drive crashing and needing to be replaced. (luckily: 1. it was covered by warranty and 2. we had a full back up of everything on my computer)


Our first family picture with Ethan. This was taken by our nurse as we were leaving the hospital. It is hospital policy to be wheeled out in a wheelchair.


I love these pictures of Brielle. This is the day Ethan was born while she was playing at the Christensen's house. Deb did a great job with her hair so it would look so cute when she came to meet her new brother for the first time.

She was having a great time and didn't miss us at all. It was nice having a place to take her while I was at the hospital and to know she would be happy and well cared for.


Tuesday was James' birthday. We went to our local zoo as a family. James was able to help the zoo's veterinarian with a couple procedures they had going on that day. Brielle loved the chance to meet the ponies up close. She couldn't stop giggling.

I was very glad there was glass in between Brielle and the lion. The lion was NOT happy and was trying hard to eat Ellie as a snack.


Here is Ethan at 1 1/2 weeks having his first bath. His umbilical cord stump was obviously still there, so we couldn't immerse him, but we sprayed him down. He wasn't a fan.

Ethan's "Nursery"

Ethan is currently sharing a corner of our room.

Luckily his clothes don't take up too much room.

And here is the little guy all bundled to sleep.

What's in a name?

So we have decided on a name for the new Finlay baby boy. Don't worry, my initial choice of Maximus did not prevail. We are calling him Ethan Bradley Finlay. My middle name is Bradley and so is my Dad's, so it works out great.

So here he is just a few minutes after I cut the cord. He pinked up really fast. I thought he had a pretty thick neck when he first came out, but now when I look I don't think so.

I looked at the time stamp of this photo and it was 19 mins after Ethan came out. As you can see, Meg looks fabulous. You would not guess that she just delivered a baby without an epidural! Ethan was already latched on and nursing and is pretty much a huge chow hound.

Ethan's feet were stamped on the birth certificate then they were pressed on my arm. This is the symbolic gesture of how he is already walking all over me :)

After he was done nursing he took a much needed nap and Meg got to have some lunch!

Ethan slept like...well...a baby after his bath. We were moved to a recovery room and we just wheeled him a few doors down.

Brielle came to visit and have dinner last night (we are planning to do the same thing tonight). Our wonderful friends and neighbors watched her the whole day before she came to visit. She is very interested in Ethan. She was continually asking to have him put on the ground so she could see him by herself. She will be a great big sister.

Here is a little video clip of Ellie meeting Ethan for the first time. She was trying to teach him the parts of his face. She was even nice enough to stick her tongue out at him. My favorite thing that Ellie says now is "two" while she shakes her hand. She says it twice in this video. To her "two" simply means there are more than one of something, in the case of eyes and ears she is right on!

Birth Story

For those that want some of the not too gory details. If you don't like details though I don't suggest you read it.

***Megan's Perspective of the Birth***
Everything was going so smoothly and easy with this pregnancy. There was of course some normal pregnancy aches and heartburn, but overall it seemed great. Then a couple weeks ago I started itching, enough that it was keeping me awake most of the night, every night. I tried lotion and petroleum jelly and the nurse recommended gold bonds medicated powder and benadryl so I tried those as well. Nothing worked. I found out about Cholestasis of Pregnancy as I was trying to find some relief and called my doctor to see if that could be what I had since I had some of the other symptoms as well (dark urine, lack of appetite, fatigue...from not sleeping of course). I had some blood work done which came back elevated which means I tested positive for the Cholestasis (also known as ICP). Basically due to an unknown reason with the pregnancy my liver wasn't functioning properly. The side effects are an extreme annoyance for the mother and especially dangerous for the baby. There are only 1 out of 1000 pregnancies diagnosed with ICP, so it is very rare which is why my nurse didn't think of it when I mentioned all my symptoms. She had only seen 2 cases in 10 years of practice.
So, because of a high risk of stillbirth, it was decided it was safest for the baby to come as early as possible. We were scheduled to have an amniocentesis on Sunday morning. This tested the lungs of the baby and showed that he was developed enough to be delivered with no problem. We were then scheduled to be induced Monday Morning (March 9th) and 8am.
I was already dilated 4cm when I was checked in (luckily my body was getting ready on its own). The pitocin was started at a low drip at about 8:50am to start me with regular contractions. James and I were having a great time watching the Baby Shower episode of The Office and talking. By about 10:50 I had dilated to a 6 and the doctor ruptured the water to continue the labor. At this point things went extremely fast. I'm not exactly sure of the timing, because after the water broke all I could do was concentrate on breathing through contractions. I just know that within the hour I told James I needed to push. He called the nurse who quickly got the doctors in the room. They checked and found I was 10 cm and ready to go. So, by 11:55am Baby Boy Finlay arrived safe and healthy into the world. For being 3 weeks early he is an extremely big boy...off the charts big. They checked his glucose to make sure I didn't have an unfound case of gestational diabetes. He checked out normal though, so at 8lbs 6oz and 21 inches long it seems he may take after his Dad's height and build.
He is healthy, I am healthy (the ICP is supposed to go right away after delivery) and we are all very happy. Now, we just need him to tell us what he wants his name to be.

Baby has arrived!

Here are a couple of quick pictures. I took them with the MacBook camera so they are not the greatest, but they were fast. Mom and baby are doing grand. He came out about 3.5 hours after we got to the hospital. Came out at 8 lbs 6 oz and 21 inches long. Not bad for being 3 weeks early. Super cute. More posts later.

Shapes

This week we are focusing on shapes. We already worked with hearts for Valentine's week and stars with President's day, so I decided to go back to the basics.


Right now if you ask her what to look for she can pick it out, but she can't always come up with the name on her own. For example if you say "where is the triangle?" she points to it, but if you point to the triangle and ask "what shape is this?" she doesn't always remember the name.
She does know circle and oval, but square, triangle and rectangle are harder names to say. She does however love to say octagon (which for her is anything more than 4 sides).

So at some point we'll need to work at coloring inside the lines. :) I would tell her to color the shape a certain color. She would find that shape and start coloring it and then continue coloring the whole page.


Shape Sorting

She didn't have a problem with the colors and knowing to match the shapes rather than the colors. I cut out the shapes during her nap and she actually found them and brought them to me when she woke up. She was very interested in what they would be for.